Why, did you have one fail on you? I actually think Western Digital and Hitachi/IBM drives are the best. I'm not that crazy about Seagate, Maxtor or Toshiba myself.

I have had numerous Maxtor drives fail for me when I used to be a sysadmin, and once on my personal computer in 2000 (last time I bought a Maxtor).. All of them failed between 6-18 months of use...

I am hoping that Seagate (company who bought Maxtor) can improve QA and reliability.. I usually buy Hitachi and Seagate, and have had a few issues with Western Digital but would probably buy again._________________Vote for me, and your wildest dreams will come true.. - Pedro Sanchez, "Napoleon Dynamite"

I am going to be in the market for an external hard drive enclosure and HD very soon and I want one that fits the Mini perfectly. This one looks good, but I am definitely not a fan of having the connections on the side vs the front and back. From what I can see the LaCie has only one rear USB port and no FW in the back?

What if you turned the Lacie unit sideways? Would that help?

At least turning it sideways would get the large Lacie logo out of sight.

I am going to be in the market for an external hard drive enclosure and HD very soon and I want one that fits the Mini perfectly. This one looks good, but I am definitely not a fan of having the connections on the side vs the front and back. From what I can see the LaCie has only one rear USB port and no FW in the back?

What if you turned the Lacie unit sideways? Would that help?

At least turning it sideways would get the large Lacie logo out of sight.

Jaime

Hmm.. Maybe.. Agree the other thing that I do not like about most of these form fitting enclosures are the big logos on them.._________________Vote for me, and your wildest dreams will come true.. - Pedro Sanchez, "Napoleon Dynamite"

At least turning it sideways would get the large Lacie logo out of sight.

Jaime

And gets the ports up front, where we all want them!

I really don't know what to say about this new one. I guess it's an improvement over the LaCie mini and doesn't cost that much more, but having ports on the sides is really bizarre.

Bizarre??? Why? They are on the back as well. Dell and many monitor/tv manufacturers have additional side ports. I see nothing Bizarre about it. They make it easy to connect devices, without taking away from the looks.

How many people bought the mini because of it's size, looks etc. I'm glad it doesn't have ports on the front either.

I think the product looks good, it has good build quality (it's made of the same material as the mini), the color matches, big drives are available. You can get a model without a fan, LaCie has a good reputation etc.

The only thing I thing LaCie is missing a good portion of the market on, is offering a model without a hard drive.

The only thing I thing LaCie is missing a good portion of the market on, is offering a model without a hard drive.

I don't think you will ever see LaCie offering empty cases for the DIY crowd._________________Mike
Beaverton, OR
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We live in interesting times
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Yea, but (I think) those are for connecting it to the Mac mini. I thought it was smart of Lacie to put one type A and B USB ports on the back. Listen, I think there are some benefits to moving the ports away from the back. I just don't think this thing is going look very good sitting on your desk with wires coming out of it everywhere. It's also going to take up more room. I agree with your earlier statements about it being good for temporary connections. But man this thing could end up looking like an octopus if every port is being used. How funny would it be if the new Mac mini had them on the side too. _________________1.25GHz Mac Mini / 1.8GHz iMac G5 / 2.0GHz C2D Mac mini (2009)
4GB iPod mini / 2G iPod shuffle / 16GB iPhone 3G
Apple TV 2
iLife's a Bitch!

I'm glad I own the "old" MM Companion. I replaced the 80 hd myself with a 160 GB Hitachi and sold the 80 Hitachi to someone in a another case where it showed up in his Power Book as MacMini Companion
Anyway I bought myself a Sweex 4-USB/2Firewire hub for 7.50 Euro's (=$9.10) which I can hide away beneath the TFT or so and there's no ugly "Octopussy look" to be considered! I don't either like to buy myself a new LaCie hub, while I really don't need those big disks anyway for now. Whe the ime comes I do, I just perform the same switch as now I know 250 GB is safe for a fanless-LaCie enclosure ____________________________________Jimę
Now on Hackintosh in G5 case!

I'll probably pick this up in couple of months. I need a nice big firewire drive.

I too wish all the ports were on the back but whatever. How I see it is I use a BT mouse and keyboard so all my ports are always free. What I'll do is plug the acomdata external usb hard drive I already have that I use for backup into 1 usb port, ipod into the other and then use the hard drive in fw mode and other usb ports will be used for temporaries (thumb drive, digital camera, dvx, portable usb hard drive). Those things usually aren't plugged in for more than 2 hours at a time anyways and I won't have to stand up to unplug them. So it still works out.

A couple of questions though: if using the hard drive in firewire mode does the rear usb port become usable to anything? And can this bootup and down with the mini?

Also why the hell won't belkin make that hub the same colour as the mini?